Starting Family Members:

EA’s description of this family: “As seen in The Sims 4 Spooky Stuff official screenshots and trailer. Download today and scare up some fun!”

Aghostus Caesar

Age: Elder (50 days, Ghost – death by laughter)
Traits: Ambitious, Self-Assured, Loner
Aspiration: Friend of the World
Career: Currently Unemployed

Davey Bones

Age: Adult (24 days)
Traits: Bookworn, Goofball, Outgoing
Aspiration: Public Enemy
Career: Currently Unemployed

Gourdon Carver

Age: Young Adult (23 days)
Traits: Evil, Hot-Headed, Creative
Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire
Career: Currently Unemployed

Joanna Hex

Age: Young Adult (23 days)
Traits: Loves Outdoors, Good, Creative
Aspiration: Nerd Brain
Career: Currently Unemployed

Bash Boiler

Age: Child (12 days)
Traits: Evil
Aspiration: Rambunctious Scamp
Career: Grade C Student

Smash Boiler

Age: Child (12 days)
Traits: Evil
Aspiration: Rambunctious Scamp
Career: Grade C Student

Again, this family is starting out as EA made it, downloaded from the gallery. They have no “official” family ties, but I will be getting together Gourdon and Joanna, who are adopting the Boiler boys. The ghost, Aghostus, and the pirate, Davey, will stay with the family and help out. As for jobs, Aghostus rolled for the Secret Agent Villain branch, Davey will go into the Criminal career, Gourdon will be a painter, and Joanna rolled for the entertainer career, music branch. Should be a fairly chaotic family, but I put them in because Spooky Stuff is awesome. 🙂

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Starting Family Members:

EA’s description of this family: “Free spirit Liberty, cheerful Summer, and geeky Travis are unlikely friends, and nothing can come between these three. Except perhaps the growing feelings both Summer and Liberty have for Travis…”

Travis Scott

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Self-Assured, Geek, Outgoing
Aspiration: Computer Whiz
Career: Currently Unemployed

Summer Holiday

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Active, Cheerful, Outgoing
Aspiration: Friend of the World
Career: Currently Unemployed

Again, this family is starting out as EA made it, with the exception of Liberty Lee leaving to find her own love. Travis Scott will be getting a Tech Guru career based on his traits, while Summer got hers rolled for her and got Business (Investor side).

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Starting Family Members:

Cassidy Purdue

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Music Lover, Loner, Creative
Aspiration: Musical Genius
Career: Currently Unemployed
Bio: From the household with her brother Ollie – “This household is just bursting with creativity! Don’t keep these two behind closed doors or they might just accidently paint over them! And how will they find their way out then? [sic]”

Jade Rosa

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Ambitious, Outgoing, Neat
Aspiration: Mansion Baron
Career: Level 2 Business

One of these is from the library where she was with her brother, Ollie Purdue, the other is a castaway from the Partihaus household in Windenburg. Cassidy will be getting a career in Entertainment per her traits.

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Starting Family Members:

Ollie Purdue

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Art Lover, Creative, Bro
Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire
Career: Currently Unemployed
Bio: EA’s description of Ollie and his sister – “This household is just bursting with creativity! Don’t keep these two behind closed doors or they might just accidently paint over them! And how will they find their way out then? [sic]”

Babs L’Amour

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Clumsy, Materialistic, Noncommittal
Aspiration: Serial Romantic
Career: Currently Unemployed
Bio: “Gold digger or the perfect opportunist?”

These two are from the Townie library, like DaSilva and Kay. The guy was part of a brother-sister duo that I broke up to find them love, and Babs was solo. Ollie will be picking up the painter career based on his traits, and Babs rolled to join the Athlete career (I random-ed her career for lack of an idea.)

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Starting Family Members:

EA’s description of this family: “Poor, poor Bob and Eliza – have they ever been happy? It seems there’s nothing one can do to please the other. Just what is keeping this couple together? Or, conversely, what is the spark that will finally drive them apart?”

Bob Pancakes

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Gloomy, Loner, Slob
Aspiration: Master Chef
Career: Level 3 Culinary

Eliza Pancakes

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Perfectionist, Materialistic, Neat
Aspiration: Mansion Baron
Career: Currently Unemployed

Iggy Pancakes

Age: Toddler (7 days)
Traits: Charmer
Bio: “Is that a Silver Dollar Pancake? Nope, it’s just the newest little addition to Bob & Eliza’s pancake stack! Meet their son Iggy, a charming toddler who’s bringing a small measure of harmony to the Pancakes’ household.”

This family is as they were created by EA, except for the toddler, who was officially released to the gallery when the Toddler free update came out, so I put him where he belonged. Eliza will get a job in the Business career, since her traits don’t push her towards any specific career.

Current Family Tree

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Starting Family Members:

Andre DaSilva

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Hot-Headed, Genius, Childish
Aspiration: Computer Whiz
Career: Currently Unemployed
Biography: “Not the kinda guy you want fixing your computer.”

June Kay

Age: Young Adult (24 days)
Traits: Ambitious, Foodie, Erratic
Aspiration: Master Chef
Career: Currently Unemployed
Biography: “Her cooking skills and tasty food stuffs are so good, you’d think she was crazy! Oh, wait…”

Both of these sims are in the library when you first start up the game, I just paired them up and plopped them into a starter home. Andre will be getting a Tech Guru career, while June will get into the Chef career.

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Willow Creek Index | Week One Part One

Starting Family Members:

EA’s description of this family: “The Goths are an aristocratic family with a dreary aura. Between Mortimer writing macabre stories and Bella’s mysterious disappearances will Cassandra and Alexander grow up to be gloomy, too?”

Mortimer Goth

Age: Adult (24 days)
Traits: Creative, Bookworm, Outgoing
Aspiration: Renaissance Sim
Career: Level 3 Writer

Bella Goth

Age: Young Adult (24 Days)
Traits: Family-Oriented, Romantic, Good
Aspiration: Party Animal
Career: Level 2 Secret Agent

Cassandra Goth

Age: Teen (13 Days)
Traits: Creative, Gloomy
Aspiration: Musical Genius
Career: C Student

Alexander Goth

Age: Child (13 Days)
Traits: Bookworm
Aspiration: Whiz Kid
Career: C Student

In the initial days, Cassandra will pick up a babysitting job to help out with paying bills. Alexander, on the other hand, will pick up the Scouts activity.

Current Family Tree

Willow Creek Index | Week One Part One

First off, welcome to my first family of my “Townie Rotation”. I’ll get this whole thing started with a quick background on each family, so we can see where they started from. When the next generation takes over, I’ll post another intro to the family to show where they’re going to. So without any more ado… here we go!

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Starting Family Members:

EA’s description of this family: “Okay, here’s the breakdown: Dennis Kim and Lydia Spencer had a daughter named Alice Spencer-Kim, then divorced. Alice married Eric Lewis and had her own little girl, Olivia Kim-Lewis. They live with Alice’s dad (Dennis, remember?) and Eric’s mom, Vivian Lewis. Hey, no one ever said family was easy!”

Vivian Lewis

Age: Elder (83 days)
Traits: Family Oriented, Foodie, Cheerful
Aspiration: Big Happy Family
Career: Currently Unemployed

Dennis Kim

Age: Elder (83 days)
Traits: Perfectionist, Loves Outdoors, Neat
Aspiration: Successful Lineage
Career: Currently Unemployed

Eric Lewis

Age: Young Adult (23 days)
Traits: Materialistic, Self-Assured, Glutton
Aspiration: Mansion Baron
Career: Currently Unemployed

Alice Spencer-Kim

Age: Young Adult (23 days)
Traits: Loves Outdoors, Childish, Creative
Aspiration: Painter Extraordinaire
Career: Currently Unemployed

Olivia Kim-Lewis

Age: Child (12 days)
Traits: Goofball
Aspiration: Artistic Prodigy

Again, this family is starting out as EA made it, and I will begin with giving everyone careers.. somebody is going to have to pay the rent on that huge house! Vivian will help out around the house and get a chef job, Dennis will be getting a gardener/flower arranging career from Seasons expansion, Eric will be a Business investor, while Alice will be a painter.

Current Family Tree

Willow Creek Index | Week One

Main Apartment Switch Rules | Switch Five Rules
Switch Five Part 1 < | > Switch Six

Above: meet Connor officially. On that note – status update – at this point I am in the last apartment, and at level 7 in the politics career with Devin. This post will chronicle the rest of Switch Five for the Ritchies. We start with Devin’s Adult birthday.

A shot of the progress on the apartment, Connor’s back, and the fact that Anvi is pregnant again.

The layout of the apartment. I figure this will be the final shape of the penthouse, but it’s not. Also, not too long after this, we have the value part of the challenge completed.

Meet Jeffrey, Connor’s little brother.

Out getting friends and votes for Devin’s career:

…And his aspiration. Complete!

Connor grows up.

….And so does Jeffrey.

Connor working on his first aspiration:

… And finished.

Someone’s home from work… (side note: if you’re paying attention, this is where you note that I’ve moved around the layout of the penthouse, more on that later)

…And career portion of the challenge complete.

I use a total of two sleep replacer potions to get Connor to all four of his aspirations as a child, but as it turns out, I get them done with, like, two days remaining, so I probably didn’t need to.

A dark shot of the Oasis Springs Park’s Monkey Bars.

…And Aspiration two complete:

Jeffrey Grows up:

Something else Devin’s been working at on the side of his career:

At least it was another source of income, and something else for him to do instead of sitting around doing nothing:

And this shot… is Connor in bear form finishing up his …

… third aspiration. Wonder what everyone thought of him running around making friends while he was a bear. Also, of note: this is my least favorite child aspiration. This is one of the few times I’ve completed it without cheating to get past it. (Yep, I hate it THAT much)..

Someone else home from work with…

… a very big promotion. Way to go, Anvi!

Working on mental skill, must mean that….

…. this is the final child aspiration that Connor “needed”. I use quotes because he didn’t really need them, it just gave me something to do.. and it will help with the next Switch.

… This is where I officially show why I changed the layout.. I gave them a pool and a basketball hoop. This is Anvi on AI mode being the first to christen the pool.

Excuse the outline on the chair.. this is Connor growing up to Teen.

And another important birthday:

… He doesn’t look too happy about it.

Anvi’s turn…

Then Jeffrey’s…

.. He reminds me a lot of his dad, Devin.

… And on this note… Challenge complete. Congrats on reaching Young Adulthood, Connor.

Devin’s final stats:

And here’s what I had leftover in the bank.

The final value of the apartment:

And the final layout:

And that’s officially the end of Switch Five Extreme difficulty testing. The whole thing works. After testing the Normal Difficulty (with the other branch of Politics career), I will officially publish Switch Five… a year late.. but I figured it was about time to go ahead and get it done.

Of note: I specifically didn’t work on skills that would help me earn money on my next Switch, even though, I, obviously, know where the Switch is going next, but I wanted to make it a tougher challenge. I did, however, set him up with traits pointing towards Writing, as you’ll see at the beginning of the next Switch.

To finish off the post, here’s the lot I created for the Gym lot in Uptown. I made an Experimental Kitchen with a red theme. It’s fully tested, and seems to work out well.

Main Apartment Switch Rules | Switch Five Rules
Switch Five Part 1 < | > Switch Six

Main Apartment Switch Rules | Switch Five Rules
Switch Four Part 2 < | > Switch Five Part 2

Of note: Being that a year had passed since I started testing this Switch, I restarted testing from the beginning, so this is technically the second time play-testing this Switch. I did not, however, finish the test run on Extreme, or even start it on Normal… and I had no desire to try to sort through screenshots from a year ago, hence re-starting testing. I also don’t take much in the way of screenshots, choosing to just commemorate milestones, so this may be the only post on this difficulty (don’t worry, it’s not…. lol)

First, I build a spa on the newly opened Planet Honey Pop lot (actually, that’s not completely true, it took me a few days to build it because I forgot to initially.. it just fits better in this post at the beginning.)

Second, we check in on our heir from the last house, Devin Ritchie.

…And we’re back to 0 simoleons. Not as scary a prospect as it once was after doing a lot of Drifting and Switch testing, but it’s still a bit daunting.

First thing I do is get a job in Politics, which nets me some money, but not much. The game shows me that it’s two days until the first day of work.. which is nothing I want to wait for…. so I send Devin out fishing.

After some fishing, his social need is tanked, so I decide it’s time to get him a mate. I look through his social panel from when he was a child/teen.. and pick a girl. Her name is Anvi Basu, and she’s into art.. which is perfect for me, so it’s another income towards goals.

I invite her over to our very humble abode and set out to woo her.

First kiss!

… Turns out I moved too fast, and the proposal is rejected. So the next day, after a lot of collecting in the neighborhood (since I don’t have enough money to travel) and fishing, I find her walking around and try again. Success!

… And she’s moved in. Yay. Now I can have her paint while Devin works on his Politician career.

By this point, this is what the apartment looks like. Just enough furniture to get by.

I found this screenshot hilarious.. There’s a protest in the neighborhood that Devin didn’t even start.. and even the Living Statue is in on it.

.. Time to move on. Final value and age.

And a little tour:

This is what we were able to afford in the next apartment: In other words.. not much. A bathroom, a partial kitchen, a bed and an easel. Oh, and a few walls and doorways.